PUBLIC REPRESENTATIONS OF A PRIVATE CHOICE: IRISH DAILY

NEWSPAPERS AND THE REFERENDA ON ABORTION OF 1992 AND 2002

Jean Mercereau, Escola Superior de Educação Jean Piaget/NordesteMacedo de CavaleirosPORTUGAL

In Ireland as elsewhere, the press has always held a great importance in the

formation of public opinion, although its real effects are difficult to define with any

degree of precision. Almost thirty years ago, Fred Hirsch and David Gordon, in a book

called Newspaper Money, already wrote that

“the influence of the press on particular events including general elections is

notoriously limited. Much more important is the broad influence over the climate of

opinion, an influence which sets the boundaries and, to a large extent, the agenda of

political action” [Hirsch & Gordon 35].

In other words, newspapers have come to influence more what the public thinks about

than what it actually thinks. This is already a lot, of course, and gives newspapers,

because of the social essence of the products they propose to their audience, a strong

responsibility for bringing – or not – essential issues to the forefront of public debate. In

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the case which I propose to study here – the two Irish referenda on abortion of 1992 and

2002 – this responsibility is probably increased by the fact that abortion, unlike divorce,

for instance, didn’t mobilize the public [Hug 200], and was consequently not very likely

to boost the sales of newspapers. According to a survey published by The Irish Times on

18 November 1992, for example, abortion only came in ninth position on the list of

people’s preoccupations, long after unemployment or health questions. Therefore, what I

tried to evaluate is how Irish newspapers showed some sense of responsibility by

stimulating the public debate, setting the agenda and playing their part as potential factors

of formation of public opinion. To answer this essential question – at least partially since

such a vast issue would probably deserve a book-length study – I proceeded to a

comparison between the print edition of the five Irish morning newspapers in circulation

in 19921: the Irish Independent, the Irish Times, the Irish Press (until May 1995), the Star

and the Cork Examiner over a period of two weeks (one before polling day, one after)

both in November 1992 and in March 2002, concentrating on the importance that each of

them gave to this essential issue.

1 One could argue that Irish versions of some British papers on sale in Ireland, such as the Irish Sun or

Irish Mirror – which, together, sell almost 200.000 copies every day – would deserve to be considered

alongside their Irish rivals. Indeed, these two titles only remain British from a strictly economic point of

view, since they are edited and produced in Ireland, by Irish people, for an Irish audience and dedicate a

growing portion of their contents to Ireland. I decided, however, not to include them because of their only

recent integration within the Irish market (in 1996).

2

The first of the two referenda on abortion included here took place on 25 November

1992, on the same day as the general election. The voters had to pronounce themselves on

three questions: the freedom to travel between Ireland and another state, the freedom to

offer or obtain information on services available in another state, and the

acknowledgement of the right to life of the unborn with due regard to the equal right to

life of the mother. It came as a consequence of the X case, in which the Supreme Court

overruled a decision of justice to allow a fourteen-year-old girl to travel to the UK for an

abortion on the grounds that she was liable to commit suicide if she didn’t put an end to

her pregnancy. The amendments were proposed by the Taoiseach Albert Reynolds and his

Fianna Fáil party, supported by the Catholic Church, but the polemical wording of the

third amendment alienated both sides of the campaign2.

Over the two weeks covered by this study, between 18 November and 2 December

1992, Irish daily newspapers showed great differences in the importance given to the

referendum. While the Irish Times, for example, dedicated four editorials exclusively to

it, and the Cork Examiner three, the Irish Press only mentioned it on three occasions, the

Star once and the Irish Independent not at all. This variation in the importance given to

the event is also translated by the occurrences on the front page or the number of articles,

especially of opinion, as the following table reveals:

2 The third proposal of the 1992 referendum stated that “it shall be unlawful to terminate the life of an

unborn unless such termination is necessary to save the life as distinct from the health of the mother where

there is an illness or disorder of the mother giving rise to a real and substantive risk to her life not being a

risk of self-destruction”. Unlike the first two amendments, which were approved by, respectively, 62.3%

and 60% of the voters, the third proposal was rejected by 65.4%.

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Table 1: front pages, editorials and articles devoted to the referendum on abortion by Irish

morning newspapers between Wednesday, November 18, 1992 and Wednesday, December

2, 1992:

Title

(Year of

foundation)

Circulation

(July-

December

1992)

Issues

analysed

Abortion

on front

page

Editorials

on abortion

Total articles on

abortion

(information/opinion)

Irish

Independent

(1905)

149 000 13 4 - 29

(26/3)

Irish Times

(1859)

93 000 13 6 4 41

(33/8)

Star

(1988)

85 000 13 - 1 7

(6/1)

Cork

Examiner

(1841)

56 000 13 6 3 22

(16/6)

4

Irish Press

(1931)

50 000 13 1 3

(mentioned)

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(10/7)

First of all, we can suggest two reasons to explain why the Irish Times was the Irish

newspaper to give greatest emphasis to the referendum on abortion. On the one hand, and

from a journalistic point of view, this newspaper has always given great importance to its

public mission which was for example made official by its Memorandum of Association

in 19743; on the other hand, on a more political level, what is at stake, according to the

Irish Times, is much more than abortion, and it is in the name of progress, maturity and

honesty that the newspaper urged its readers to accept the first two amendments but to

refuse the third:

“There is much to be learned from our E C neighbours who [...] have put in place a

legislation which spells out precisely the circumstances [– not least the time limits –]

within which abortion may be available. This is the route of maturity and honesty,

and it is the route most likely to ensure the rights of women to health and to life. The

3 Article 2, (d), (ii), C (1), (2) & (3) of the Memorandum of the Association of the Irish Times Trust

Company established in 1974 reads as follows: “The objects for which the company is established are [...]

in pursuance of the foregoing end and to enable the readers to of the Irish Times to reach informed and

independent judgements and to contribute more affectively to the life of the community to ensure that the

following principles govern the publication of the Irish Times: (1) that news shall be as accurate and as

comprehensive as is practicable and be presented fairly; (2) that comment and opinion shall be informed

and responsible and shall be identifiable from fact; (3) that special consideration shall be given to the

reasonable representation of minority interests and divergent views”.

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first step in that direction is to vote the approval of the amendments on travel and

information on wednesday, while voting no to the third proposal” (Irish Times’

editorial, 21 Nov.).

On the whole, while giving clear instructions to its readers through its editorials (as it did

on other moral issues but not for general elections in the last thirty years), the Irish Times

obviously strived to bring the issue into the public debate, to give voice to both sides of

the question and to provide its readers with documents liable to help them understand the

issues involved - for example, a guide entitled “From conception to birth” or “a voting

guide on the three issues in the three referenda” (Irish Times Week End Supplement, 21

Nov.). By doing so, it obviously took the opportunity to reinforce its status of quality

newspaper, or newspaper of record.

The Irish Press, although it was already going through serious difficulties which

would eventually lead it to close down three years later, held for the last time the part that

was assigned to it by Eamon de Valera when he created it in 1931 because he felt the need

for a newspaper which would share his own vision of a rural, Gaelic, Catholic and

Republican Ireland. While concentrating on the general election in which it urged its

readers to vote Fianna Fáil, the Irish Press also made its duty about the referendum -

although in somewhat less convincing terms – by basing itself on the conviction that

“abortion in any but exceptional cases is abhorrent to most Irish people. […] A vote for

the amendment will […] ensure that abortion cannot become widely available” (Irish

Press’s editorial, 25 Nov.).

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The Irish Independent showed some indifference about the referendum and

obviously chose to concentrate on the general election – most front pages and editorials –

probably because it was considered much more likely to attract readers. It gave for

example great emphasis to the polemic between the Fine Gail and Labour leaders about

who should be the next Taoiseach4, and cannot possibly have had much influence on the

outcome of the referendum other than by encouraging the general indifference. Basically,

the same could be said of the Star, Ireland’s only tabloid daily newspaper also owned by

Independent Newspapers (in common with the British Express group5). Abortion

obviously doesn’t sell newspapers as well as a general election, and for both of these

titles, the question of who will win/lose, or who has won/lost, is much more newsworthy

than trying to evaluate the positions on a complex moral issue which puzzles most

readers.

In the end, the biggest surprise probably came from the Cork Examiner, the Republic

of Ireland’s oldest daily paper which, beside giving more importance to the referendum

on abortion than most of its rivals, did its best to make up for the lack of information and

consequent confusion of its voters which it denounced in all three of its editorials.

Besides, its editor, Fergus O’Callaghan, showed great clear-sightedness by ending his

comment of the results with this prediction: “We could be facing into a third referendum

in something like ten years” (Cork Examiner’s editorial, 27 Nov.).

4 It will in the end be neither John Bruton nor Dick Spring, but Albert Reynolds, who will remain in office

until 1994.

5 Property of Richard Desmond since 2000.

7

Indeed, the second referendum on abortion took place in March 2002, although in

quite a different context. Once again, it was called by a Fianna Fáil government and the

Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, supported by the Catholic Church, invested himself personally

in the campaign. The referendum proposed to remove the threat of suicide as a ground for

abortion but, unlike in 1992, it did not coincide with the general election, which probably

put a greater responsibility on the press, since the mobilization of the public seemed from

the beginning very low. As far as their coverage of the event is concerned, although all

the newspapers more or less doubled the space they devoted to the referendum - which,

this time, didn’t have to compete with any general election – the variations in their

attitude didn’t change much, as this table shows:

Table 2: front pages, editorials and articles devoted to the referendum on abortion by Irish

morning newspapers between Wednesday, 27 February, 2002 and Wednesday, 13 March,

2002:

Title Circulation

(January-

June 2002)

Issues

analysed

Abortion

on front

page

Editorials

on abortion

Total articles on

abortion

(information/opinion)

Irish

Independent

170 000 13 5 1 73

(66/7)

Irish Times 120 000 13 7 4 84

(60/24)

Star 105 000 13 1 2 15

8

(13/2)

Irish

Examiner

64 000 13 5 3 41

(25/16)

In the absence of the Irish Press, let’s start with the Irish Independent: if it did not

dedicate a single editorial and only one front page to abortion on the week preceding the

vote, it did give it one full page every day. On the whole, however, it seemed too busy

relating all sorts of rapes, sex abuses, assaults and murders to give abortion more than an

accumulation of nuggets of news – what John Merrill once called “supermarket

journalism”: a little of everything for everybody (Merrill 6). In particular, great

importance was given to the rapist who was involved in the X case in 92 and who was

again sentenced for other sexual assaults ten years later.

The most interesting characteristic of the Independent’s coverage, however, lies in

its sudden change of attitude from polling day onwards. First of all, on the day of the

referendum, it dedicated almost half of its front page to a photograph of a dog with the

title: “One dog one vote: now Charlie is a ballot boxer”, after a dog received a polling

card bearing its name. Beyond its provoking triviality, the choice of this news for a front

page on such a day may be interpreted as: what’s the point of talking about abortion to

people who want to hear about something else? Obviously, while the Independent must

have felt it couldn’t possibly avoid mentioning the referendum, it deliberately chose to

make it as light as possible. Confirming this logic of entertainment is the fact that on the

day the results came out, the Independent, after a week of indifference, suddenly gave

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great emphasis to the referendum. On Friday 8, for instance, most of the front page was

about the victory of the No, under the huge title; “Backlash for Bertie”. Above all, only

then did the Independent dedicate an editorial to the vote – to put the blame on the

government, considering that “the demand for another poll was a figment of politicians’

and campaigners’ imagination” (Irish Independent’s editorial, 8 March). Accordingly, no

less than seven full pages – 30 articles – gave every possible detail about the results and

the leaders’ reactions. Rather than the satisfaction to see the personal defeat of a Taoisach

whom the Independent supported in the 97 election6, this sudden interest may be

explained by the opportunity to finally put a face on the Yes campaign and to criticize a

personality rather than evaluate a moral issue.

On the whole, the Independent’s attitude over the two weeks seems to rely on a

typical characteristic of the so-called sensationalist press: to exploit people’s emotions

afterwards instead of trying to shape their opinions beforehand. In this, the Independent

was not very far from the Star which, however, gave somewhat more importance to the

referendum than 10 years earlier. This time, it dedicated two editorials to it (on the day of

the vote and of the results) and its front page after the results (with the huge title “Oh NO

Bertie”). To be fair, however, some credit must be given to the Star for encouraging its

readers to “make their voices heard”, as its editorial stated on voting day, when they were

obviously not the most likely to be interested in the issue. In a more sensationalist style,

the Star did the same as the Independent by focusing on personalities rather than on ideas,

6 By means of a famous front page editorial on polling day which declared: “It’s payback time!”.

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as both newspapers’ habit of calling politicians by their first names is only one example

among others.

As in 1992, the Irish Times’ coverage of the 2002 referendum was quite different.

First of all, it devoted four of its editorials (two during the previous week, one on polling

day and one on the day of the results) and seven consecutive front pages to the issue.

Again, this is in no way surprising from a newspaper which has always given great

importance to moral issues and took the opportunity, once again, to put in practice its

motto: “to give our readers a reasonably complete service not only of the news they want

to hear but of the news which we think they should hear”7. One could argue, of course,

that a compared analysis shows a real correspondence between the profile of the readers

of the Irish Times and of the so-called liberal electorate, and that it is easier for the Irish

Times than for any of its rivals to insist on serious issues without risking to put off its

readers, but it is nonetheless true that as far as the 2002 referendum is concerned, this

newspaper did make a particular effort not only to bring the issue to the forefront of

public debate, but also to give importance to both sides of the campaign - for example by

showing, on the same page, two doctors defending opposed views (4 March) and on

another the Taoiseach defending the Yes while a former Taoiseach, Garret Fitzgerald,

explained his reasons to vote No (2 March). Despite all this, we can’t forget that the Irish

Times is the Irish newspaper which came closest to giving precise voting instructions to

its readers, not as openly as in 1992, but by warning them against the dangers of a Yes

7 Extract from the Irish Times’ editorial in its centenary edition, on 8 June 1959.

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vote: “Ireland’s time-honoured, hypocritical policy of pass-the-parcel would continue.

[…] It would extend the fudge, enshrining it in the Constitution”(2 March). After the

results – a very tight victory of the No8 – the Irish Times didn’t hide its satisfaction to see

“hardline conservatism vanquished as never before”, to quote Fintan O’Toole (5 March),

and there is no doubt that the newspaper considered it had played an important part in

what it presented as the victory of progress against obscurantism.

However, calling its readers to do their citizens’ duty, and trying to help them make

up their minds is not - at least in the context of the 2002 referendum - the privilege of the

only Irish Times. Indeed, the Examiner, now known as Irish Examiner9, also played its

part as a potential actor of public life in its own way – more humble and less

sophisticated. While not giving the referendum as much importance as the Irish Times, it

brought it to attention and proposed a real reflection, with no less than sixteen opinion

articles over the two weeks – an impressive total in comparison with the Independent’s

seven. Above all, as ten years earlier, it gave great emphasis to the confusion felt by the

electorate, blaming for it both the lack of information and the divisions within the same

professions, Churches and even parties. While urging its readers to vote on the eve of the

referendum (in its editorial entitled “Go out and vote”, 5 March), it explained that

8 Yes: 49,6 %; No: 50,4 %.

9 From Cork Examiner, the newspaper first changed its title to Examiner in 1996, to Irish Examiner in

2000, in order to reflect a growing national dimension. In spite of these changes, over 95% of the Irish

Examiner’s readers last year came from the Munster region.

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“in keeping with the long-established policy of this newspaper, we do not presume to

tell our readers which way to vote on this complex political and moral question. On

the contrary, by commenting on the eve of such a crucial vote, our aim is to inform

voters, to help people make up their own minds, so that they can vote according to

their convictions” (5 March).

Besides, it is probably in the Examiner that we can find the most realistic and sensible

conclusion: “Whatever its outcome, it is painfully clear the referendum will not stop a

single Irish woman from going to England for an abortion, a tragic journey undertaken by

thousands every year” (Irish Examiner’s editorial, 6 March).

What conclusions should we draw from this brief study of the attitudes of Irish daily

newspapers at the time of the two referenda on abortion of November 1992 and March

2002? First of all, although I have tried to avoid falling into the usual clichés, or

stereotypes, often applied to Irish newspapers (the Irish Times is good, the Irish

Independent is not so good, the Star is even worse, the Irish Press is partisan and the

Examiner is provincial), each title seems to have revealed quite a lot about itself.

Independent newspapers, for example, have proved to be “commercially rather than

politically or ideologically driven”, to quote an expression used by John Horgan [Horgan

51]. After all, both have obviously followed a logic of entertainment. The Irish Press has,

once again, showed that it may have had “its finger on the pulse of ordinary people” as its

last editor, Hugh Lambert, once put it [Kenny 157], but its main objective has nonetheless

remained propaganda. In the end, only the widely respected Irish Times and, in a more

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unexpected way, the Examiner, may be said to have fulfilled their role as platforms for

debate and forum of opinions, by basing their coverage of the referenda on ideas and

issues and not merely on facts and by refusing to give up any attempt at reflection for the

sake of entertainment. My point is neither to present an elitist and Manichean view of the

press of the Republic of Ireland, nor to argue that every newspaper should be an

intellectual institution before being a commercial undertaking. Instead, I have tried to

show that, considering that two out of three national newspapers sold every day in Ireland

are now controlled by the same group10, and given the circulation of Irish versions of

British tabloids which don’t seem to bother much about their contribution to the public

debate11, maintaining the capacity to fulfil their social responsibility may represent the

greatest challenge of Irish daily newspapers in the future.

10 Among daily newspapers, Tony O’Reilly’s Independent News and Media owns, beside the Irish

Independent, the Evening Herald and half of the Star, which together represented 64.6% of the total

circulation of Irish newspapers between January and June 2003, or 48.8% counting with the British

newspapers on sale in Ireland.

11 For instance, between January and June 2003, 79.000 for the Irish Mirror and 114.000 for the Irish Sun,

against, respectively, 63.000.and 77.000 in 1996. On the whole, over 30% of the daily newspapers sold in

the Republic of Ireland in 2003 were British.

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LIST OF WORKS CITED

PRIMARY LITERATURE

The (Cork) Examiner, The Irish Independent, The Irish Times, The (Irish Daily) Star:

18 November - 2 December 1992 and 27 February - 13 March 2002;

The Irish Press: 18 November - 2 December 1992

SECONDARY LITERATURE

Brennan, Paul. La Sécularisation en Irlande. Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen, 1998.

Curran, James & Seaton, Jane. Power without Responsibility: the Press and Broadcasting

in Britain. London: Routledge, 1991.

Horgan, John. “Newspaper Ownership in Ireland”. Media and the Marketplace: Ethical

Perspectives. Cassidy, Eoin & McGrady, Andrew, eds. Dublin: Institute of Public

Administration, 2001. 45-57.

Hirsh, Fred & Gordon, David. Newspaper Money. London: Hutchinson, 1975.

Hug, Chrystel. The Politics of Sexual Morality in Ireland. London: Macmillan, 1999.

Kenny, Ivor. Talking to Ourselves: Conversations with Editors of the Irish News Media.

Galway: Kenny’s Bookshop and Art Gallery, 1994.

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Kiberd, Damien, ed. Media in Ireland : the Search for Ethical Journalism. Dublin: Open

Air, 1999.

Koss, Stephen. The Rise and Fall of the Political Press in Britain. London: Fontana Press,

1990.

Merrill, John.The Elite Press, Great Newspapers of the World. New York, Toronto &

London: Pitman Publishing Corporation, 1968.

Van Herp, Herman. “The Media and Public Interest”. Media and the Marketplace:

Ethical Perspectives. Cassidy, Eoin & McGrady, Andrew, eds. Dublin: Institute of Public

Administration, 2001. 71-78.

 

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